I’m feeling pretty annoyed now. For about five years I have been waging a heroic, one-person war, refusing to show my boarding card at the cash tills of retailers at UK airports (Boots and Dixons bow to pressure in row over boarding pass checks, 13 August). When I asked why the shop needed my pass, the response I would usually get was surprise at the question and a shrug or “It’s company policy.” I once encountered a particularly hostile WH Smith assistant at Heathrow, who, when faced by my refusal to show my boarding pass, leaned forward and asked me in a tone of some menace: “What have you got to hide?” The companies then brought in self-service tills that would not let you buy anything unless you scanned in your boarding card.
During this time I was, admittedly, under the illusion that mine was a lonely, courageous stand against the ever-increasing data-gathering by global corporations that wanted to feed into their giant marketing databases the information that a lone male traveller to Abuja in April was liable to buy a Kit Kat. I now find that I was, in fact, conducting a lonely, courageous stand against the theft of tax relief meant to go to consumers by the airport retailers. It seems I am now to be joined by thousands of other boarding-pass refusers. I shall just have to find another lonely, courageous stand. Any suggestions?
Stuart Howard
London
• As a member of the awkward brigade who regularly refused to show my boarding pass to staff at airport branches of Boots, WH Smith etc, I am pleased now that my bloody-mindedness has been not only vindicated but also shown to be a challenge to the various high-street VAT rip-off merchants.
What concerns me, however, is that numerous senior HMRC staff have undoubtedly gone through various airports themselves, been asked for their boarding passes, knowing it was part of a scam, but failed to do anything about the retail abusers when back at their place of employment. Surely if senior HMRC staff see abuse taking place, whether they are on duty or off, they should do something about it?
Eugene McLaughlin
Redbourn, Hertfordshire
• The law of unintended consequences will catch up with most of the passengers who refuse to show their boarding cards in airport shops. Retailers may well bow to the boycott and announce they are passing on the VAT saving to the 40% of their customers heading for non-EU destinations. But they’ll soon follow it up with a less well publicised increase in prices for everyone to maintain their profits. I reckon about 7% should do it.
Willie Montgomery Stack
Norwich
• If these demands for boarding passes and the lack of clarity on VAT incense you, it’s also worth examining VAT repayment claims on purchases made outside the EU. The government has outsourced this to commercial firms, which take 60%. We, as citizens, have no say in the matter and HMRC shrugs off all responsibilty. The German government has made it a simple matter of presenting the necessary paperwork to the tax authorities at airports – why should we continue to be fleeced?
Helen Carpenter
Chýstovice, Czech Republic
• The Treasury intended the 20% VAT concession to reduce customers’ prices. But, apparently, this didn’t happen in most cases: it stayed in the shops’ tills to boost profits.
So what does the government do? The Treasury minister, David Gauke, urges airport shops to use the VAT saving for price cuts. Will they do this? Probably not. If they get away with appalling behaviour once, why not try again by, say, reducing prices of items that are not selling anyway to demonstrate their remorse? It would be better to instruct shops to go back five years, calculate the value of VAT discounts not given to customers and pay this to the Treasury with a 25% surcharge within six months. Then their auditors should have to validate these calculations (at the shops’ expense) within 12 months. Shops failing to do this would pay a 100% surcharge as encouragement. Shops that continue the practice (and the managers responsible) would be subject to criminal charges.
Individuals failing to pay personal taxes are punished, so why not companies? The chancellor keeps telling us we are all in this together – this is his chance to show he means what he says.
Brian Bean
London
• Talking about airport rip-offs, what about the Gatwick Express? As it’s one of the most expensive airport-transfer services in Europe, travellers might imagine that they enjoy some kind of exclusivity for their ticket. If so, think again. Those passengers arriving at Gatwick in the early morning will find that their Gatwick Express is, in fact, just a grubby old, bog-standard commuter train on its way to London from Brighton, and will, therefore, probably be full by the time it gets to Gatwick, so you’ll be standing all the way, along with all your luggage. To be fair, they do put a Gatwick Express sticker on the coaches, so maybe I shouldn’t be complaining.
Dr Ben Timmis
London
